My realness was surrendered as a baby...crying, pleading. The cries carried with them the life I had shared with she who gave me life ~ flying into the universe in search. I slowly morphed into the doll I became. The one who laughed and talked and danced her little heart out.

Until, one day, from the shadows, they returned. Like they knew. As the doll aged it had begun to crack and fray; bruised and torn by life in a real world, existing as only a doll. Dutifully fulfilling the dreams of the girl who owned her...

Yes, the tears this worn plastic doll had once shed; the screams that proved her real in time past, but had been denied...they found their way back; And she was taken for surprise. Almost as if she was living another life, not hers. She remembered and she searched.

Eventually, she found her truth,

still merely a plastic doll.

Unbearable grief welled up and broke through the frozeness, the facade. It felt as if her brittle arms and legs, feet and hands, head and heart might literally snap with the newfound awareness of blood coursing through her veins.

This old, hard plastic I am made of (resilient, strong, inflexible, controlled) must adjust to being real ~ for the first time.

I am real?

The painted on smile disappears. I have only survived in this one state ~ my adopted self. Certificate of authenticity and all. How does a "living" doll break out of this shell I have been in my whole life?

It is so painful to stretch the joints and flesh that have stayed in one position, frozen in the mold that was used to define me, afraid to even imagine who I really am. I walk stiffly...half-doll, half-person in the land of the living. Discovering my own humanity.

2 comments:

Being an adoptee, I very much relate to being a doll. I remember writing a poem about it once. My amom was Narcisstic and treated me like a toy that could provide amusement or that could be cast aside when she grew tired of playing. My a sister used to have nightmares about her dolls coming to life at night. I used to wonder if she was dreaming of me.

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If Moses identity had been expunged upon his adoption into Pharoah's household, how would he have known who he was to fulfill his call to lead his people out of slavery? The Church must take the lead in ethics and truth in adoption, including restoring the right of adoptees to their identities." Rich Urlaub